Law Abiding Citizens and Counter-Intuitive Enforcement

Senators and Governors and Presidents! Oh, my! Why do we even bother? The right wing camp has us believing morality lies within the law. The school of thought for a long time is if you take a bunch of Christians and put them in positions of high authority, everyone will leap to their feet in rapturous joy and begin praising God. If only it were that easy. No amount of laws in any society or culture will ever create a moral majority.

Appeals are being made everyday to change American law to align more to how God wants us to live. Ban abortion, no indoor smoking, minimize pornography. Hollywood tried doing this in the early days of film, and look where we are now. Hell, even God tried doing this throughout history and yet we consistently fail. It all started with Adam and Eve. They had one rule. ONE! Do not eat this "apple" or you will die. That sounds pretty straightforward. Yet, Original Sin entered the world because of a question (that is a theology to be discussed somewhere else). So for hundreds of years people lived with the knowledge of God but not the ability. Then Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written. God's people now had laws.

Of these over 600 laws, maybe only a handful were successfully followed. God gave these strict guidelines so the Jews could one, be holy as God is Holy and two, stay alive while traveling through the desert. Almost every single law between the two books has a scientific and theological reason behind it. However, the Hebrew people continually fell short of God's glory, even with all the law and no distractions (Exodus). So, God made a deal with the people. He brought Moses up to a mountain and basically said "Ok, fine. I understand it is hard to follow this many laws, so here are 10." That's it? Ten laws? Seems easy enough. Until golden calves and prostitutes start appearing. So now what? People are clearly not even good enough to follow ten basic principles. God sends His son Jesus to show us how to live.

Jesus clearly stated that even the Mosaic laws are no longer requirements of God. To sum it up, love God first and foremost and then love your neighbor. Do these two things and all else will fall into place. Yet, YET, people fail to even do these two simple tasks. If this is not the perfect example of the human condition, I need to stop thinking. So how will laws make any of us holy or righteous or even just morally straight? They won't. God admits it throughout the Bible. He's basically saying 'look, just follow Christ and do what you think I would want you to do'. Love Him and you will know how to live for Him. No amount of American law will get us to do that, what it takes is a strong faith, an even stronger will, and a belief in God. Christ died for our sins and we need to live for Him. Creating American laws is not a way to evangelize and it will not make Christians out of Pagans, Atheists, and Gentiles.

We need to stop putting any form of emphasis on creating "Christian laws". We need to simply stop doing the things that the laws would have us stop doing anyway. Because, either the laws will be followed by people already doing or not doing what the laws establish, or they will be broken regardless. This is an epitome act of spinning our wheels. We need to share the love of Christ, not the law of God.

Don't be the lizard.